When a failed witness protection operation ends in multiple homicides, evidence suggests the crime is linked to a series of violent robberies in Auckland City.

For Detective Sergeant Sean Devereaux, solving the case is proving next to impossible. His own superiors in the police department are refusing to cooperate with his investigation. After Devereaux shoots a suspect in a botched surveillance job, he is forced to start providing the answers rather than demanding them.

Book Review:

ONLY THE DEAD is the third Sean Devereaux novel from NZ author Ben Sanders, but only the second I've read. Back in 2012, reading the second book, BY ANY MEANS, it was obvious then that Sanders is an author who likes to work with pace, and complexity. The plots in both these books are built on swirling / shifting sands, making sure that the reader is never exactly sure of anything. Add to that a strong reliance on a noir style, taking a central protagonist, putting them through all sorts of physical challenges, and keeping them dancing that line between good and bad, right and wrong.

Building on many of the basic elements from the earlier books, Devereaux plays a lone hand for most of the action, although he does have a good relationship with ex-cop John Hale, working PI in Auckland and good backstop. Particularly as Devereaux spends much of this book on the outer - sidelined, under suspicion, suspended. In this book he also has a rather shaky romantic relationship lurking around in the background, but that's more about a how to guide on screwing up your personal life.

In the earlier book the music, the popular culture references, and a tendency to lose the basic stylings detracted markedly from the plot, getting things bogged down often. That's been sorted out in ONLY THE DEAD, with the asides and around abouts less distracting and built into the action more naturally and seamlessly. That noir, pared down, choppy style is much more consistent, albeit heavy-handed, but combined with the types of characters, and the action it works. Well enough to make it perfectly acceptable that a place like Auckland would have a dark side, that there's violence and dodgy cops barely under the surface, and that a working PI would be meaningfully occupied.

If you've not read any of the earlier books, ONLY THE DEAD would still work. It is definitely the book where this series starts to make it's mark. Although you do have to feel a bit sorry for tourist authorities in these sorts of locations. There's enough realism here to make you wonder what they're not telling you about "the City of Sails".

But the inquiry is not straightforward. Witness accounts are conflicting. The dead man appears to be an unintended victim, with the true target unknown. It's a homicide that leaves police with no initial suspects, and no apparent motive.

Book Review:

BY ANY MEANS is the second book from NZ author Ben Sanders. Sanders is a fan of writers such as Michael Connelly and Lee Child, which I suspect you can probably tell from his style. Rapid fire, with an opening that will really make you sit up and take notice BY ANY MEANS has a number of intriguing elements to it. It's a complex, shifting plot which moves through viewpoints rapidly. It has a lone wolf style of central character in Sean Devereaux, who despite being a cop, basically plays a solo part in resolving not just the opening shooting of the book, but, it seems, just about everything else that ever happens in Auckland. What little sense of partnership there is, is unusual for a cop, as ex-cop John Hale, current fugitive from justice himself, jumps in and out the action. And you'd be best placed to pay attention at those points - there is an awful lot going on that both these men are trying to stay on top of.

Given that this is the second book, and I know nothing at all about THE FALLEN I've a sneaking suspicion I should have read it first. There were points in BY ANY MEANS where I really thought I was missing something - that there's obviously something about both Devereaux and Hale that I just don't know. I really must go seek out that first book and see if I've made a bit of a mistake in reading them out of order.

On the upside, when Sanders is writing terse, pointed, sharp and tight action BY ANY MEANS is a seriously good thriller. That style does get a bit patchy in places, and it's when the terseness gives way to wordiness, where there's just a sneaking suspicion that the music and popular culture references are getting in the way of the plot, things do bog down a bit. There's also some very complicated plotting going on here and whilst things eventually do come full circle, back to the reason for one of the best opening's of a book I've read in a long time, it did seem, sometimes, that I was caught up in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.

When local cop Sean Devereaux, who enjoys skating close to the edge, does a favour for his attractive neighbour, he unwittingly exposes a web of deceit and corruption.

As he investigates the murder of a 16-year-old Epsom ‘princess’ in his day job, his after-hours efforts have him stumbling into the aftermath of a scam involving senior colleagues, and he is soon enmeshed in an escalating cycle of kidnapping, murder and violent mayhem.